The Scorpion
The Scorpion is a recurring character in the fourth season, but a major character in the fifth and sixth season. He is a mysterious, feared and dangerous assassin who is hired by House Cray to fight against House Thalatrix in the War of Inheritance. He is revealed to be truly working for Krestenne Ironheart. Biography Almost the entirety of the Scorpion's background and upbringing is unknown, including his own name - it is heavily rumoured that even he ''doesn't know what his name is. He does not hail, to the best of people's knowledge, from a noble house or originate from any particular culture, but he is confirmed to be Dornish. He grew up as a beggar on the streets of Dorne, until the age of twelve, at which point he joined a group of assassins to try and earn money. When he, for the promise of a good meal, revealed the location and identities of the assassins, they abducted him and ripped out his tongue with hot pincers, so that he may never speak any treachery ever again. He was thrown back on the streets following this, but he returned three years later - inexplicably having learned combat and stealth and the ability to remain undetected by any authority but his own - and personally killed the surviving assassins who marred him. He made a reputation for himself as an assassin, and his only weapon was a long whip which is tipped by two small blades. He has become extremely feared in the underworld of Westeros, to a point that he was nicknamed 'the Scorpion' because he was silent, cunning and his whip was used like the sting of a scorpion to silence his prey. He has been responsible for a vast series of killings, all committed in highly populated areas and each time he has escaped undetected and with nobody truly knowledgeable of his appearance, origin or personality. The Scorpion's ''modus operandi is to only use his signature weapon to kill the target he was hired to eliminate. Season 3 He is seen in Lord Cray's castle at Snowhall, standing over the lord when he is deciding whether or not to meet with Rience premature to the battle. When asked who he is by Benjen Thalatrix, the man only stares back, intimidating Benjen with a cold stare. Lord Cray orders the Scorpion to accompany him to the battlefield whilst he meets with Rience, and the Scorpion simply glances back, silently hinting at agreement with his employer's terms. Ferryn and Benjen curiously watch the Scorpion leave, and exchange glances with one another, unsure of the Scorpion's identity. The Scorpion is present on the field outside the Labyrinth. Obviously, the Scorpion remains silent throughout the confrontation, except for when Ferryn moves to attack Rience at the pinnacle of the argument, at which point the Scorpion wordlessly bars his path. His eyes are noticeably fixed on Maria throughout the meeting, though, and when Lord Cray orders that they turn back, the Scorpion races ahead of them on his horse, dismounts on his own and enters one of the pavilions, where he removes his mask off-screen. One of the squires passes by and sees the Scorpion's face - what he sees obviously frightens him, and he drops the armour he was carrying. The Scorpion responds to this by, without looking, cracking his whip at the boy, killing him with a blade through the eye. The Scorpion enters the Battle of the Labyrinth once the combat is already in motion, running in on foot without a weapon drawn. He vaults and flips over the trees and fallen horses and soldiers, and at one point even catches an arrow in one hand without looking at it. He visibly also comes face-to-face with a Thalatrix soldier in armour and the man, concluding that the Scorpion is an enemy, attacks him. The Scorpion, unarmed, runs him through with his own sword and then breaks his neck. Spotting Rience retreating up the Weeper, the Scorpion follows after him by climbing the waterfall itself, not taking the path that Rience and Benjen take up the Labyrinth to fight. During the climax of their duel, when Rience has Benjen at the point of a sword but refuses to execute him, the Scorpion appears and strikes Rience from behind with the blades of his whip, throwing him over into the waterfall. He then supports Benjen down the winding path of the Weeper away from the sight of the duel. Whilst the wounded and dying of House Cray are being tended to in Snowhall, the Scorpion ominously walks through one door and, with most of the hall staring at him, walks through to the throne room to meet with Lord Cray. Lord Cray, sitting by a fireplace and hearing him enter, asks him if the brat is dead'. The Scorpion responds by lashing out with his whip and spearing a moose head between the eyes - Lord Cray sees that the Scorpion's blades are slick with blood. Lord Cray smiles. Season 4 The Scorpion is ever present where Lord Cray appears, and is never caught without his whip. It is observed that Benjen Thalatrix has taken full credit and benefit for apparently executing Rience Thalatrix in combat, with the Scorpion's identity and role in the fight completely hidden. During the plans for laying siege to the Nest, the Scorpion uses sign language and hand gestures to provide strategic points of attack upon the enemy's defences. When Lord Cray takes his advice as opposed to Ferryn's, Benjen protests angrily but Lord Cray sternly retorts that the Scorpion has penetrated entire kingdoms on his own and come out alive, all on his own without assistance, thus concluding that the assassin's tactical expertise was more valuable than the mindless violence that Ferryn and Benjen had in mind. He is seen writing letters to Braavos in his chambers when a servant brings him wine, the boy's hands shaking violently at the sight of the man. The Scorpion rises and takes the wine, waving the boy away. He turns around and, sipping from the cup, blindly writes the name ''Krestenne Ironheart at the conclusion of the letter, before binding it and attaching it to a raven, sending it out of the window into the night. He then turns and sleeps. The raven flies to the island of Telos where a tall young woman in a voluminous crimson dress takes the letter and reads it, smiling broadly. The Scorpion attends Lord Cray's council meeting with his military leaders, and then learns that Maria Cray will be leading the charge in the upcoming skirmish. Lord Cray turns to the Scorpion, who bows elegantly before his employer and Lord Cray places a hand on the assassin's shoulder (Everyone in the room holds their breath when he does this, fearing that the Scorpion would break the lord's arm for touching him). The Scorpion stands and Lord Cray orders him to bring Maria alive to him, and kill her companions. The Scorpion answers by leaving the room. Seeing a chance to finally disgrace his superior, Benjen rounds on the Scorpion as he leaves, but the Scorpion slides past him. Benjen furiously orders him to answer that he will obey his king. Lord Cray answers that the Scorpion will bring Maria to him and, when asks how he knows the assassin will, Lord Cray replies 'because he hasn't killed me'. The Scorpion is seen lurking through the Labyrinth when Maria leads a Thalatrix legion against a Cray convoy, and there is a brief battle in which Maria and her men emerge victorious without casualties. The Scorpion then explodes on the scene, swinging his whip straight for one of the Thalatrix soldiers, decapitating him. Distracted by the strike, the Scorpion is struck from behind by the pommel of another Thalatrix's soldier's sword. Upon being struck, the Scorpion drops the whip and kicks out at his attacker, killing him with a brutal heel to the neck. Unarmed, the Scorpion faces the ten other men, who attack him, but he kills them all without a weapon. Maria, horrified by the brutality of their deaths, retrieves her sword and tries to fight the Scorpion, who retakes his whip. Maria goes on the defensive, frantically dodging the violent strikes of the whip, before being backed against a rock wall, where the Scorpion punches her across the cheek, knocking her out, and then scoops up her body and carries her away. The Scorpion carries Maria into Lord Cray's chambers and throws her to the ground, before throwing a bucket of icy water over her face to awaken her. Whilst Lord Cray furiously argues with his daughter, the Scorpion silently watches them. When Lord Cray orders, the Scorpion approaches and then kicks her in the stomach, doubling her over. Hooking an arm around her neck, he bends her over the bed and holds the blade of his whip to her lips. Lord Cray sternly demands that she give him the secret passages into the Nest, or the Scorpion will '''give her a smile that will never leave her face. The Scorpion shows absolutely no emotion whilst this is said, not even a sadistic smile. Maria thrashes and struggles, until the Scorpion inches the blade deeper into her mouth and she stops. Still, she refuses. Feigning mercy, Lord Cray orders the Scorpion to release her. Just as Maria breathes a sigh of relief, Lord Cray snaps his fingers and the Scorpion takes her by the leg and drags her, kicking and screaming, into the dungeons of Snowhall. Her screams of pain at whatever is happening to her are heard by the prisoners, who shiver and cry at the sound of the former lady of Snowhall's agony. The Scorpion is next seen when he uses icy water to awaken Maria. She shivers and he unchains her hands, pulling her head by the hair towards a large bucket of equally colder water. He plunges her face into the water, pressing his elbow into her neck against the edge of the bucket, cutting off her ability to breathe properly. He then calmly applies his hand to a nerve ending on her side, and she shrieks underwater under so much pain. He continues to select pressure points on her body and is ignorant to her anguish and her struggles. When he lifts her head above the water and she chokes for breath, he then squeezes a pressure point behind her ear and she screeches, screaming for him to stop. Lord Cray then stands over the two of them and says that the Scorpion will stop if he tells her what he wants to know - otherwise, she will meet a fate nearly as painful as Rience did. She curses at her father for this, so Lord Cray nods to the Scorpion, who plunges her head back in and starts applying more pressure to nerve endings on her upper body. Lord Cray calmly watches. Three days in and Maria has not surrendered to her father, and the Scorpion is still interrogating her, this time by tying metal wires around her wrists and hanging her over a pool of boiling hot water. The wires are cutting into the skin of her wrists, and when the Scorpion uses a winch to raise her higher above the pool, it digs into her even further and draws streams of blood. When she screams for him to lower her so it doesn't cut into her, he releases the winch and it drops her, thigh-deep, into the hot water and she shrieks at a much higher pitch. He then raises her again and one of the lords continues to order her to provide the information that she has. Maria finally, when the pool has been raised up to her waist, wails that she will tell them and the Scorpion releases the wire and drags her by the hair out of it, only tipping the water all over her and scalding her skin. The Scorpion holds her up by the neck with his fingers constricting into her throat. Lord Cray then enters and coolly orders she answer him. She tells him that there is a tunnel into the castle just short of the Weeper. Satisfied, Lord Cray orders her to cuff her ankles together and her shoulders (Commenting that her wrists are too thinned by the wires cutting into the flesh to restrain her). The Scorpion obeys and leaves Maria in her cell. Just as Maria had planned, Lord Cray sends a group of his best-trained soldiers to the cave by the Weeper, but it is revealed that Maria had been ordered to do this if she felt like she was on the brink of relenting to any demands Lord Cray had issued. When the soldiers enter the cave, a group of Thalatrix men drop boulders on the entrance to the cave and it is revealed that a family of bears lives in the cave. The bears overpower the soldiers and rip them to pieces. The Scorpion witnesses this incident and hears the screams, before returning to Snowhall to report. When Lord Cray hears this, he throws a violent temper and upturns chairs and tables, throwing wine bottles at the wall and howling in fury. The Scorpion, naturally, watches all of this without reacting. Lord Cray eventually recovers from his anger and orders that his daughter be made to suffer. The Scorpion nods, turns and walks away. Season 5 The Scorpion leaves Maria again, with her face and stomach beaten and purpled with bruises and welts, along with several scars from the wires used to restrain her. The Scorpion strides past one of the guards, who looks at the girl and remarks that she looks close to death. The Scorpion meets with Lord Cray and Lord Cray explains the strategy to simply lay waste to the defences of the Nest, having penetrated the Labyrinth itself. The Scorpion the Scorpion provides an ulterior strategy by tracing a finger from the Weeper, to a similar cave not too far away, then pointing out that there is an entrance to a tunnel that does lead straight into the castle, judging by its geographical location and the direction in which the cave points towards the castle and digs deeper into the ground, diagonally. Lord Cray smiles at the intelligence of the assassin and orders that he sends a battalion of men into that cave, but the Scorpion volunteers to go in alone. He rides into the siege after three more days of the Labyrinth being attacked, but his horse is brought down by a cannonball and the Scorpion easily cartwheels off of the horse as it falls dead. He runs down to the cave and enters, lighting a torch he brought with him. He walks through the tunnel and enters the castle via the library. En route, he detects that he is being pursued and turns, to his shock, to face a live Rience Thalatrix halfway into the journey. Rience moves to attack, but the Scorpion throws his torch at the man. Rience absorbs the flames with his cloak, but feigns succumbing to the attack and the Scorpion turns and runs into the throne room where Elia is hiding. The Scorpion brandishes his whip and attacks Elia. The blade of his whip misses by seconds and scars the throne instead. Rience reappears and the Scorpion turns, just as Rience slices for the assassin's bared throat, but the assassin kicks him in the stomach, throwing himself forwards and knocking Rience to the ground, seriously endangering his injuries. Rience falls to the ground, howling and the Scorpion cartwheels on one hand in mid-flip, spinning around and swiping his whip at Rience to finally kill him and finish the job he should have ended at the Weeper. Rience furiously deflects the blades of the whip and they rebound violently with a savage shrieking clang and plunge into the Scorpion's chest. The Scorpion screams and Rience approaches him, angrily kicking the blades deeper into the man's torso, knocking him to the ground. In a terrifyingly rare moment of derision, Rience taunts the Scorpion for dying by his own sting. The Scorpion looks incredulously at him, then slumps forward and dies. Personality and appearance The Scorpion, true to his namesake, is dark-skinned, extremely thin but lean, with long curved nails and cold black eyes. He normally wears a red long-sleeved tunic and matching trousers, along with a voluminous wine-red cowled cloak, the cowl pulled full over his face. He also wears a face mask across the lower half of his skull, concealing what little of his features of his are visible. Underneath the cowl and mask, he has a viciously mutilated mouth, and teeth filed to points, with the scars showing the struggle he put up whilst the assassins forcibly removed his tongue. He wields a whip with two small blades at the end as his only weapon of choice. The Scorpion is silent, calm and completely unresponsive to anything that happens around him, only ever communicating with a hard, intimidating stare. He is obviously intelligent, and it is claimed that he taught himself to read and write, and could read lips from afar. He was an extremely efficient assassin, having never failed an elimination or been detected or caught in the process, and possesses an incredible athleticism for someone of his build. He is intimidating, and it is observed that a whole room silences when he enters, and all eyes are upon him as if expecting him to 'sting' them when unawares. The Scorpion is not only calm, but also absolutely pitiless, not showing a shadow of a hint of emotion on his face whilst carrying out the torture and interrogation of Maria Cray, receiving and pursuing no pleasure in her agony and pleads. He does not respond when offered money or power in exchange for mercy, and Lord Cray remarks that he knows that the Scorpion intends to obey him because the Scorpion hasn't killed him upon giving him an order. Enigmatic and cold, the Scorpion's one and only moment of pain or disbelief, or emotion in general, is when Rience Thalatrix finally kills him, and he is incredulous that he has been beaten by one of his own victims, and that this victim has survived him at all. He understands both the Common Tongue and Old Valyrian. He is also extremely knowledgeable in pressure points and nerve endings, which he applies as a form of interrogation. Category:Characters Category:Fanon Characters Category:Major Characters Category:Antagonist Category:Characters from Braavos Category:Assassins Category:Mercenaries Category:Deceased Category:Status: Dead Category:Dead Category:Male Category:Mentioned Characters